


Written in Stars

by 9_miho



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Ladyhawke (1985)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ladyhawke Fusion, F/M, Hetalia Kink Meme, M/M, let's pick on estonia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1910073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_miho/pseuds/9_miho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hetalia Kink Meme Request - Ladyhawke fusion featuring Netherlands as Etienne and Denmark as Isabeau</p><p>The thought that kept Eduard from retching (much) as he traversed the tunnels in a bowed-over shuffling creep was that he wouldn’t be in deep shit for much longer.</p><p>He was very wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written in Stars

The thought that kept Eduard from retching (much) as he traversed the tunnels in a bowed-over shuffling creep was that he wouldn’t be in deep shit for much longer.

He was very wrong.

…

A small voice in the back of his head pointed out helpfully that the wolf’s hackles weren’t even up. It could have just been a very big, very shaggy dog – really.

The rest of himself told that little voice just where to go when he could smell the hot coppery blood to the exclusion of everything else.

Eduard backed into a tree, wondering just how quickly it took to expire from being eaten by a wolf as the coppery-brown beast considered him with both its blank gold eyes and blood-stained mouth. Somehow, he remembered that you never looked at animals straight on like that, it was a way to get them to leap but he couldn’t tear his eyes away, feeling rather like a rat spied by a cat.

Leaves and loam crunched under two feet. The spell broken, Eduard looked up at a lean young man who was then crouching down to rub at the beasts ears with a genial air.

“He’s a not a monster. Just overheated now,” the young man said. “But you should probably get in right now and bar the door behind you.”

The wolf huffed and turned its enormous head to butt against the man’s chest. Eduard realized the newcomer was barely dressed – a shirt and braies and feet shoved into rough slippers. The shirt was too big; it slipped over one bare, freckled shoulder.

“Go on. Think of it as a dream,” the stranger said, not looking up as he tussled back with the wolf. Eduard scuttled past, shutting the door of the rough building even as he heard bittersweet laughter mingled with little growls.

…

The stony faced man might have had a ghost of a sardonic smile on his face when Eduard mentioned the stranger. 

“I am amazed then that he did not talk your ear off then,” the man said before the smile slipped from his lips as something rather like pain creased his eyes. But it was only for a moment and then his face was as expressive as a slab of slate as he contemplated the oddly docile red kite in perched on his saddle. 

…

The odd, prettily cat-like woman fished out Abel’s filled pipe and lit it with an ember. Smoke spiraled around her.

“They didn’t tell you anything, did they?” she asked as she exhaled in a long stream.

Eduard nodded. The woman took the mouthpiece of the pipe from her lips and studied it.

“Once, there was a stubborn mule of a man who was determined to make his way in the world with his own two feet and his sword,” she said. “And he rose high up for his efforts. He was cold but upright, never staying down when knocked down.” She then took another puff of smoke.

“One day, he had a new recruit who was as warm as he was cold, a man who always smiled, was prone to amusing his own whims. Mikkel was everything that the stubborn captain would never let himself be. And no one thought little of the new guard who rose in the ranks, all charmed by his artless warmth and ever present smile. And as this story goes, the two fell in love.” She smiled around the pipe for a moment and she was a girl, not a witchy hermit with muddy hems who was smoking.

The woman sighed. “And they vowed to each other and that is all you need – you witnessing before God. No church. No rings. No incense and pretty class. Just you, your beloved, and perhaps another witness. That is what made them happy.”

Then she shut her eyes. “And they were foolish to have another witness – threes are poor for secrets, you should know. A foolish woman let slip the vow. The Archbishop was furious. The new guard was his ‘good nephew,’ you see, a pawn or perhaps to be something more. In that fury, he called upon Hell to let the two be by each other but never touch. To not know of each other when they are in bestial form, to see and then to forget.” She exhaled and she stared at Eduard with deep green eyes that were no longer smiling.

“You cannot let my brother kill the Archbishop,” she said.

As the words sank in, Eduard muttered, “And while I am at it, shall I dry up the sea and chop down a forest with a spoon?”

…

“I don’t know what is the worst part,” Mikkel said quietly. “Not being able to hear him talk to me or touch him – the actual him. You know that I barely remember his face? I thought I would remember and at dawn and at dusk I stare to remember. But it’s only getting harder by the month. I wonder if his eyes are actually gold or if I’m just too used to seeing the wolf.”

“He talked a lot more?” Eduard asked, not really able to offer anything else.

Mikkel tilted his head. “No. Not that much more. But he has a way of talking back when I talked to him. Or maybe just grunting.” He smiled a lopsided smile that somehow made his entire face light up.

Eduard had seen far better looking men, some of them in priest’s vestments. But somehow, when the man smiled like that (and it shouldn’t have been a pretty smile – his teeth were surprisingly pale and well-kept but crooked), it was very easy to fall in love with him without thinking.

Even then, there was a barely hidden sadness in those blue eyes. Eduard looked away; it was different actually offering comfort instead of easy lies to weasel people out of their coins. He grunted as he was tucked back against a man’s chest. Mikkel’s chin rested atop his hair and the man was shaking even as his voice was somewhat steady.

“Just- a little bit,” Mikkel asked. “Just for a short time. Please.”

Eduard had frozen but then nodded, as if Mikkel would notice; it didn’t really seem that “no” was going to be an answer. They sat like that as the rain continued a patter-patter on the stable roof.

“His eyes are green-amber,” Eduard offered at last. “Sometimes more green, sometimes more gold.” He paused. Then he added, shyly, “When he’s talking about you, when he’s worried about you, they’re gold.”

When hot tears splashed onto his scalp, Eduard muttered, “Damn leaky roof, letting the rain in.”

…

No one would dare point out Abel’s red-lined eyes, the tear tracks still lining his face.

“It ends,” he then said to Belle, who crossed her arms and glared at him.

“I won’t put him through that anymore,” the man said. “It’s Hell that I never asked him to follow me through.”

Belle stamped her foot. “You thickheaded fool. It’s your own pride talking! Will you listen to me?”

“If you think-” said Abel, stepping forward with one hand raised.

Eduard dove between them without thinking. Abel sneered then he stopped in his tracks at the angry, still bleeding scratches bared by the torn front of Eduard’s shirt. His eyes went up the longest one, the one that went up to Eduard’s neck and the side of his jaw.

“He dove into an ice covered pond to save your stupidly suicidal backside,” Belle said evenly. “Fat lot of good it did for you then.”

Abel closed his mouth. “I am sorry,” he muttered, looking away.

“There’s still a chance,” Eduard said as steadily as he could. It was a little easier as he summoned up Mikkel’s still smile and deceptively light tone contemplating a death awaiting him when he would not even have the wits to realize it in those last moments. “Why won’t you try it? Before you take even that choice away from him?”

Abel’s mouth tightened. “Fine,” he said.

…

Eduard’s mouth was dry as he adjusted the blanket he had filched and fastened into a crude facsimile of a hooded monk’s robe. Act like you belong, he chanted to himself. Act like you are doing exactly what you should be doing. You will melt into the crowd, the eye will slide over you.

His fumbling hands undid the great doors of the cathedral. And his part in the tale done, he ran for it to higher ground, scurrying away and abandoning the blanket in the process. From a perch, he saw the light streaming in from the doors change. Shadow ate at it as a wolf would eat a rabbit.

Eduard mouthed the words to himself. Day without night. Night without day. Stand as two men to confront that which has cursed you with such unhappiness.

An eclipse.

He marveled at it even as the bells started to ring, shaking him from the odd reverie. Eduard whirled to see the rose window behind him. Without thinking, he bent down, wrapped his hand around a long wooden pole left in the thick dust up here and swung it.

Fragments of colored glass cascaded to the ground, the shattering echoing in his ears like a scream. Shadowed light streamed in and he had to look away quickly. He crept forward, still seeing spots from the light and reeling from the noise. Then for a moment, he swore that he heard a flutter of wings though he could see nothing, not even a shadow.

Abel shoved away the body impaled on his sword. The corpse convulsed and was still in a growing pool of blood.

The Archbishop spread his arms in a mockery of a beatific pose. “Kill me then,” the man said far too calmly. “And condemn my dear foolish nephew to his fate.”

“He’s dead!” roared Abel, his voice echoing throughout the cathedral. He drew himself up and said, “And you may as well have the bloody knife in your hand. So I will be your guard to Hell.”

“Captain.”

No title had been said so lovingly. It felt more intimate than a name.

Abel half-turned and his eyes widened. Mikkel stepped from the shadows, hair disheveled, eyes tired but so very bright. He had managed to get a proper tunic but his feet were bare.

Even from up on his perch, Eduard could see the utterly joyous smile that threatened to split apart Mikkel’s face. Mikkel reached Abel’s side, took his gauntleted hand. Then he turned to the Archbishop, the two of them within the circle of pale shadow of the eclipse.

“Look at me, Uncle,” said Mikkel and his voice was colder than the frozen pond that nearly drowned Eduard. The Archbishop turned but his body didn’t seem to so much move as pivot.

“Look at me, Archbishop,” gritted Abel and the same pivot to him.

“Look at us!” the two of them snarled, almost at the same time. They held hands as a drowning victim would hold to a line.

Mikkel then threw something that coiled at the Archbishop’s feet. The jesses. He flexed his hand as if he had just touched something distasteful.

The shadow receded and there were two men still standing in the cathedral, one in white, one in black. Abel’s knees buckled; Mikkel held him up and it was uncertain who held the other, whether it was Mikkel who grasped Abel to him or Abel who pulled himself to Mikkel.

The Archbishop shook; his face was now red. His face contorted in a silent scream of rage and from his voluminous sleeves he pulled a knife.

He didn’t make it very far. As he fell back, his features shifted until there was a vestment clad dead thing, neither wolf nor carrion bird, sprawled on the floor with Abel’s sword through it. 

“I should kill you,” Mikkel was saying between kisses. “I should kill you right now because you can’t even call me the idiot of us.” Abel was in no condition to be replying, holding onto the other man like grim death.

Eduard crept down from the loft, pondering a quiet corner to sit, gather his knees to his chest and rock back and forth as he finished reeling. A soft hand rested on his shoulder. He turned and saw Belle smiling at him and there was a flutter in his stomach suddenly.

There weren’t many pretty women who thought he was worth smiling at, he knew. Especially women who suddenly looked like a great burden had been lifted from their shoulders, the smile a little softer but so much less brittle.

“Thank you,” she said and she pressed a kiss against his cheek. It was then that he figured that he was still somewhat drunk on unexpected courage.

“Can I tempt you with a good place for wine?” he asked.

She arched her eyebrows. “I’m rich in a lot of things. Not coin.”

Eduard mutely shifted slightly, showing her a heavy silk purse inside of his tunic. Belle sighed and chided, smiling, “Heaven is a long way without you putting stumbling blocks in.”

He shrugged and tucked the purse a little further in and offered his arm to her. “I’m good at ending up about where I should be,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> -The requestor was really gunning for North Italy or France as the Mouse/Philippe. But when I read the prompt I saw Estonia in the role – in part because I take a good deal of amusement in seeing him as the hapless character in a crazy plot.  
> -It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie. Funnily enough, I watched it partly because of a reference in “Angel Sanctuary.”  
> -braies – baggy pants worn as undergarments in much of Europe from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (If we believe that Ladyhawke takes place sometimes in the 12th century).  
> -I do wonder if at one point after the curse was broken, Isabeau chewed Etienne out about being so willing to kill her without getting her input into the matter. On reflection, that aspect of the story really disturbed me and Etienne came dangerously close to paralleling the Archbishop by robbing Isabeau of her agency.  
> -The Archbishop’s death is a reference to some of the early concepts where the writers thought about having the curse rebound on the Archbishop and turn him into a wolf.


End file.
